[BLOG] Some Friday links

• Charlie Stross at Antipope shares an essay he recently presented on artificial intelligence and its challenges for us.
• P. Kerim Friedman writes at {anthro}dendum about the birth of the tea ceremony in the Taiwan of the 1970s.
• Anthropology net reports on a cave painting nearly 44 thousand years old in Indonesia depicting a hunting story.
• Architectuul looks at some temporary community gardens in London.
• Bad Astronomy reports on the weird history of asteroid Ryugu.
• The Buzz talks about the most popular titles borrowed from the Toronto Public Library in 2019.
• Caitlin Kelly talks at the Broadside Blog about her particular love of radio.
• Centauri Dreams talks about the role of amateur astronomers in searching for exoplanets, starting with LHS 1140 b.
• John Quiggin at Crooked Timber looks at what is behind the rhetoric of “virtue signalling”.
• Dangerous Minds shares concert performance from Nirvana filmed the night before the release of Nevermind.
• Bruce Dorminey notes new evidence that, even before the Chixculub impact, the late Cretaceous Earth was staggering under environmental pressures.
• Myron Strong at the Everyday Sociology Blog writes about how people of African descent in the US deal with the legacies of slavery in higher education.
• Far Outliers reports on the plans in 1945 for an invasion of Japan by the US.
• L.M. Sacasas at The Frailest Thing gathers together a collection of the author’s best writings there.
• Gizmodo notes the immensity of the supermassive black hole, some 40 billion solar masses, at the heart of galaxy Holm 15A 700 million light-years away.
• Russell Arben Fox at In Media Res writes about the issue of how Wichita is to organize its civic politics.
• io9 argues that the 2010s were a decade where the culture of the spoiler became key.
• The Island Review points readers to the podcast Mother’s Blood, Sister’s Songs, an exploration of the links between Ireland and Iceland.
• Joe. My. God. reports on the claim of the lawyer of the killer of a mob boss that the QAnon conspiracy inspired his actions. This strikes me as terribly dangerous.
• JSTOR Daily looks at a study examining scholarly retractions.
• Language Hat shares an amusing cartoon illustrating the relationships of the dialects of Arabic.
• Language Log lists ten top new words in the Japanese language.
• Lawyers, Guns and Money looks at the dissipation of American diplomacy by Trump.
• The LRB Blog looks at the many problems in Sparta, Greece, with accommodating refugees, for everyone concerned.
• Marginal Revolution links to a paper suggesting the decline of the one-child policy in China has diminished child trafficking, among other crimes.
• Sean Marshall, looking at transit in Brampton, argues that transit users need more protection from road traffic.
• Russell Darnley shares excerpts from essays he wrote about the involvement of Australia in the Vietnam War.
• Peter Watts talks about his recent visit to a con in Sofia, Bulgaria, and about the apocalypse, here.
• The NYR Daily looks at the corporatization of the funeral industry, here.
• Diane Duane writes, from her own personal history with Star Trek, about how one can be a writer who ends up writing for a media franchise.
• Jim Belshaw at Personal Reflections considers the job of tasting, and rating, different cuts of lamb.
• The Planetary Society Blog looks at a nondescript observatory in the Mojave desert of California that maps the asteroids of the solar system.
• Roads and Kingdoms interviews Eduardo Chavarin about, among other things, Tijuana.
• Drew Rowsome loves the SpongeBob musical.
• Peter Rukavina announces that Charlottetown has its first public fast charger for electric vehicles.
• The Russian Demographics Blog considers the impact of space medicine, here.
• The Signal reports on how the Library of Congress is making its internet archives more readily available, here.
• Starts With A Bang’s Ethan Siegel considers how the incredibly isolated galaxy MCG+01-02-015 will decay almost to nothing over almost uncountable eons.
• Strange Company reports on the trial and execution of Christopher Slaughterford for murder. Was there even a crime?
• Strange Maps shares a Coudenhove-Kalergi map imagining the division of the world into five superstates.
• Understanding Society considers entertainment as a valuable thing, here.
• Denis Colombi at Une heure de peine announces his new book, Où va l’argent des pauvres?
• John Scalzi at Whatever looks at how some mailed bread triggered a security alert, here.
• Window on Eurasia reports on the massive amount of remittances sent to Tajikistan by migrant workers, here.
• Arnold Zwicky notes a bizarre no-penguins sign for sale on Amazon.

[URBAN NOTE] Nine city links

• The new LRT that will unite Brampton and Mississauga looks very cool. blogTO reports.
• The small farming town of Belfountain is apparently facing a major influx of Toronto tourists seeking fall sights. Global News reports.
• Ridership on Kitchener-Waterloo transit generally has increased sharply since the opening of the Ion LRT. CBC reports.
• London, Ontario, is trying to regenerate its downtown. Global News reports.
• CTV Ottawa reports on O-Train Fans, a new fan community devoted to exploring the Confederation Line.
• La Presse looks at how people cross the street in Montréal in a way different from people in Québec City, here.
• A high-density apartment development in Fredericton is unpopular among some neighbours. Global News reports.
• Hillsborough, New Brunswick, is trying to keep its grocery store alive. Global News reports.
• Calgary hosts a new development of compact homes for military veterans. Global News reports.

[BLOG] Some Wednesday links

• Bad Astronomer Phil Plait looks at the dusty spiral of galaxy M81, here.
• Crooked Timber reacts positively to the Astra Taylor short film What Is Democracy?
• D-Brief notes that, in the South Atlantic, one humpback whale population has grown from 440 individuals to 25 thousand, nearly completing its recovery from whaling-era lows.
• Dangerous Minds looks at The Iguanas, first band of Iggy Pop.
• The Dragon’s Tales looks at consideration in South Korea at building an aircraft carrier.
• Todd Schoepflin at the Everyday Sociology Blog looks at the division of labour within his family.
• Far Outliers looks at 17th century clashes between England and Barbary Pirates.
• JSTOR Daily looks at how antibiotics are getting everywhere, contaminating food chains worldwide.
• Victor Mair at Language Log looks at the evidence not only for an ancient Greek presence in Central Asia, but for these Greeks’ contact with China.
• Dan Nexon at Lawyers, Guns and Money notes that the attempt by Trump to get Ukraine to spy on his enemies was driven by what Russia and Hungary alleged about corruption in Ukraine.
• The LRB Blog looks at the transnational criminal network of the Hernandez brothers in Honduras, a source of a refugee diaspora.
• Marginal Revolution shares an argument suggesting that marriage is useful for, among other things, encouraging integration between genders.
• Sean Marshall looks at how the death of the Shoppers World in Brampton heralds a new urbanist push in that city.
• At the NYR Daily, Helen Joyce talks of her therapeutic experiences with psychedelic drugs.
• Drew Rowsome reviews the Toronto play The Particulars.
• Starts With A Bang’s Ethan Siegel considers if inflation came before, or after, the Big Bang.
• John Scalzi at Whatever has a short discussion about Marvel films that concludes they are perfectly valid.
• Window on Eurasia suggests that central Ukraine has emerged as a political force in post-1914 Ukraine.
• Arnold Zwicky considers the Indian pickle.

[URBAN NOTE] Seven city links: Brampton, Kitchener, Waterloo, Montréal, Sainte-Marte, Detroit …

• Sean Marshall considers how recent changes in provincial policy are affecting the Ontario city of Brampton.
• There is some interest in the city of Kitchener in deeper integration of the Kitchener-Waterloo region, though not necessarily amalgamation. Global News reports.
• The Waterloo Record notes that Waterloo city council has voted unanimously against amalgamation.
• Taylor Noakes at CBC Montreal notes that a revived Expos baseball team, whartever its other merits, would not be an economic asset for the city.
• Sainte-Marthe-sur-le-Lac, unaccountably, was built on a lakebed regardless of the flooding risks. CBC Montreal reports.
• The Detroit Free Press looks at the impressive former home of Patti Smith in suburban St. Clair Shores.
• Guardian Cities reports on the upset of residents in Newcastle at a recent claim that their city’s high street is the worst one in the United Kingdom.

[URBAN NOTE] Five city links: Montréal, Tromsø, Marseilles, Brampton, Harbin

• The different proposals for the future of McGill College Avenue in Montréal sound very interesting. Global News reports.
• Ozy reports on how Tromsø, largest city in Arctic Norway, has found new energy thanks to tourism.
• Roads and Kingdoms has some tips for visitors to the French Mediterranean city of Marseilles.
• Sean Marshall examines the question of why property taxes in the Ontario city of Brampton are so high. Can anything be done about them?
• Guardian Cities notes how the northeastern Chinese city of Harbin, like much of China’s old rest belt, is facing stagnant economic growth.

[URBAN NOTE] Five city links: Brampton, Milton and Markham, New York City, Atlanta, London, Lisbon

• The Ontario government’s cancellation of new post-secondary campuses years in the planning for booming Brampton, Milton, and Markham hurts these centres needlessly. Global News reports.
• Guardian Cities notes how the scale of voter repression in Georgia may not be enough to prevent the election of Stacey Abrams, given the scale of black migration to Atlanta.
• Feargus O’Sullivan at CityLab takes a look at a new report noting both the importance of venues for experimental music in New York City (and other cities) and these venues’ vulnerability to gentrification.
• A long-abandoned street of Victorian London has been remade, CityLab reports, into a component of London Bridge Station.
• CityLab reports on the beautiful, but dangerous, tiled sidewalks of Lisbon. Is it worth keeping them?

[URBAN NOTE] Five city links: Mississauga and Brampton, Montréal, Vancouver, New York City, Miami

• CBC notes</u. the underrepresentation of politicians of visible minority background in the city councils of Mississauga and Brampton.
• MTL Blog reports on the different plans of the different political parties in the Québec election for mass transit plans. (I really like the Québec Solidaire plan’s ambition.)
• Catherine Tse at the SCMP takes a look at the different sorts of businesses run by young wealthy people, often socialites, of Asian immigrant background in Vancouver.
• Henry Grabar at Slate writes about a paper examining the tactics adopted by different groups in New York City–Hasidic Jews, Chinese, and Bangladeshis–faced with high real estate prices, from intensification to diffusion to underground housing.
• Christian Portilla at VICE writes about how gentrification is undermining the basis for the Miami neighbourhood of Little Haiti, driving out long-time residents.

[URBAN NOTE] Five Toronto links: Metrolinx stops, Dean Lisowick, Toronto vigil, barbering, sales tax

• Transit Toronto notes that Metrolinx is actively soliciting ideas for stop names on the two light rail lines, Finch West in Toronto and Hurontario in Brampton and Missisauga.
• This look at the life of Dean Lisowick, an apparent victim whose life revolved around the Scott Mission, is terribly informative and terribly sad. The Toronto Star has it.
• The CBC reports on a Toronto vigil on the one-year anniversary of the Québec City mosque shooting.
• CBC reports on barber Dwight Murray’s argument that the Ontario requirement for barbers to learn hairdressing styles not directly relevant to their craft should be changed.
• At the Toronto Star, Christopher Hume makes an argument for a Toronto sales tax. (I would make it a GTA sales tax, myself.)

[URBAN NOTE] Four links from the GTA, from heightened flood risk to mass transit news to Brampton

• Torontoist notes that, between climate change and development, Toronto faces serious flood risks in the future.
• Ben Spurr notes in the Toronto Star that, come September, Metrolinx will oversee 3% fare increases on GO Transit and the UP Express.
• I am unsurprised to learn, again from the Toronto Star’s Ben Spurr, that the TTC has won an award recognizing it as the best public transit agency in North America.
• Fatima Syed notes that Brampton, with its newly hired urban planner, is in search of a new identity.

[URBAN NOTE] “Will Brampton move forward in 2017 or remain stuck in neutral?”

At the Toronto Star, San Grewal suggests this year could be the one that sees the perennially divided city of Brampton move forward.

A $28.5-million lawsuit still hangs over Brampton City Hall, council is wrestling over a future route for a LRT corridor, long-standing policing policies in one of Canada’s most-diverse communities are being challenged by residents and plans for the city’s first university need to be hammered out.

These are some of the critical issues facing Canada’s ninth largest city in 2017.

Some city hall watchers and councillors worry that the ongoing lawsuit launched by local builder Inzola Group against the city in 2011, regarding the handling of a historic downtown redevelopment deal, is causing reputational harm and the possible loss of business as it drags through the courts.

“It’s of the utmost importance that this matter be resolved in 2017,” says Councillor John Sprovieri, who has been critical of the city’s handling of the six-year-old lawsuit, which Mayor Linda Jeffrey said has “paralyzed” city hall.

“A lot of people are following what’s happening with this lawsuit,” Sprovieri said. “There is a lot of speculation and much of it is negative. Until it is resolved this speculation and the allegations are a reputational issue for Brampton — it could be doing significant damage to our reputation.”